Larry Page, CEO at Google, has just passed Facebook CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, as the most circled person on Google+. At the time of this posting, Page has reached over 598,865 “followers” on the budding social network, while Zuckerberg is off by a hair at 598,861.
The competition between the two has been neck and neck since Google+’s launch in July. Our very own data-information site, Social Statistics, has managed to keep track of this race since the social platform’s inception and all the way up to the present where Page has now finally whipped past his rival.
Though I can’t say that Page is much of an “underdog”, Zuckerberg has undoubtedly dominated the majority of the journey. To see Page finally overtake the Facebook CEO is a refreshing feeling for those rooting to see Google+ succeed, I’m sure, as it represents Page’s more-established presence as a public figure on the platform. I’m just surprised it hasn’t happened sooner. After all, how can you not love that boyish smile?
Please note that the screenshot from Social Statistics displayed below was captured shortly after I had discovered the ranking change, so it does not exactly reflect the data above.
But wait just a minute …
The first question I just have to ask is, how in the world did Zuckerberg manage to curate so many followers when he shares absolutely nothing publicly on Google+? I, like the majority, remain one of the unfortunate Google+ users who Zuckerberg does not “circle back”, so even if he is sharing amongst his private cliques, I wouldn’t know. This leads me to believe that he is simply a person of presence whose name is well-known enough in the mainstream world to acquire followers easily.
As for Google’s Page, he tends to share fairly frequently on the platform. I assume this is to follow the “eat your own dogfood’ rule that we’ve all heard sites ranting about in the past few months. His most recent publicly shared post at the time of this report features an interview clip from the Web 2.0 Summit involving Google’s Senior Vice President of Enginering, Vic Gundotra, and Google Co-Founder, Sergey Brin. Gotta love that team spirit, right?
See below for Google+ Profile screenshots for both Larry Page and Mark Zuckerberg.
If you thought Mark Zuckeberg topping Google’s most circled users list was interesting, then you might be interested in Facebook CTO Brett Taylor’s musings on Google+’s strategy from the Web 2.0 Summit.
the race will go on.
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LikeWhile it's all about communicating, it's puzzling why Zuckerberg has so many followers, since he doesn't post anything public at all (for obvious reasons). And probably never will.
The whole celebrities-circling-circus by itself is quite interesting. What are our incentives to follow Britney (probably topping the chart pretty) apart from the obvious reasons (Miss B. also just sending and not really communicating). Bet there's a nice story there.
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Likemartijnvanbeek Fan-ism is a one street either way. We follow our idols and don't expect to get a reply or personal message, ever. Usually it is just the occasional record or movie. Still we wear the shirts, put the stickers on our laptops and follow them on Twitter or Facebook. Or Google+
it probably isn't so much to see what the VIp says but more showing off that you like a person and look up to them.
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LikeBorismartijnvanbeek Exactly, besides, i'm pretty sure it's not the real artist actually posting things on google+
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LikeBoris, as far as the one way street goes, I think that might apply for fan-ism in general. For social media though, things might be different.
A bit going out on a limb here:
Before the rise of social media, it was clear that communication between celebs and fans is a one way street. You go the the concert, maybe camp out for that special spot upfront, you buy the record etc. If you got lucky, you might score an autograph and the grand prize would be pulled onto the stage and get a lapdance from Madonna. Even if that would not happen, there would still be enough value in my acts of going to the concert. Or buy that record.
In general you could say, there is value to that and there is a certain distance. As almost all celebs (politicians etc.) are unreachable.
Enter social media, this incredibly powerful construct that connects and binds and facilitates communication between nearly everyone everywhere. And in some ways, beholds the promise of proximity.
The illusion that you can touch, talk or be involved in a celebs life, if even for a fraction of a second and maybe as short lived as one comment or one like. This illusion what marketeers are selling trough social media. This is what I think that drives a lot of users on social media to follow celebs, talk to them and comment on their posts (even if posted by a PR company).
I'm not saying every celebrity can or should reply to everyone all the time (quite impossible right), but what would happen if, say Britney, just before she hops into bed in her jammies, would whip out that laptop and randomly started a hangout with one of her fans? For 5 minutes. For a minute maybe. Or comment on some of the posts made in her name? I think that would have an enormous impact.
Anyway, long story short: someway, somehow, add some value for the users/fans.
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LikeWithout mentioning HOW and WHY this story happened, this story is incomplete. Here's one example of the campaign to manipulate these circle counts:-
https://plus.google.com/115600481000140089080/posts/Zo77dhmvooZ
So, after many days of vigorous campaigning, one of Google's founders has finally overtaken Mark Zuckerberg in terms of the number of G+ circles -- but only by a minuscule margin.
Also, remember, the number of circles is not the same as the number of followers! Each user can put someone in multiple circles, grossly distorting the figures with ease if that's the objective as it was in this case. Congratulations on proving little more than the fact that that G+ has no shortage of Google-worshippers.
Campaigns supporting Google find it surprisingly easy to gain traction, perhaps due to the corporation's indestructible force-field of worshippers,wannabes and sycophants! ;)
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LikeTim Acheson Tim, do you have any links to data? The link you've provided above is 404'ing. Thanks for the input and for helping me dig a bit more on the story!
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LikeSherilynn Macale Hi, shame about the link, I now realise that it's not shared as Public! Here's an example of a Public post supporting the campaign behind the stats you reported above. When they reached the objective, there was much noise and talk of press releases, but the fact that it was the result of a campaign was generally omitted:
https://plus.google.com/105508666909703535708/posts/RNKj7bCMDB7
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LikeThis story is incomplete!
It only happened after a major viral campaign to manipulate the stats; and even then it took a long time. Half-way through the campaign, Facebook's founder was still twice as popular on Google+ than either of Google's own founders -- and that's the true and undistorted picture.
Google's legions of staff and die-hard loyalists conveniently omit the most important detail in their triumphant boasts, but they know the truth better than anyone.
Let's tell it how it happened. :)
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LikeI feel obliged to point out that the campaign organisers say they did it because they wanted "to support our CEO" and also because Zuckerberg "failed to participate" in G+.
And yet, Larry Page doesn't participate, either! Except, perhaps at a bare minimum level. His last post on G+, his own corporation's attempt at a social network, was FOUR DAYS AGO on 19/20 Oct. His previous post on G+ before that was 14 Oct! I wouldn't get too excited about this level of "participation". In contrast, many FB users are on there all day every day.
Moreover, I wouldn't expect Zuckerberg to participate on G+. Google as a corporation have created G+ specifically in order to try and compete with the company that Zuckerberg created. Google openly doesn't like Facebook, and if they could put FB out of business they would do so and call it a success.
Why does Google care so much? Because Facebook.com has now overtaken Google.com as the most popular website.
Google led the way in search, but that was a decade ago and the web has moved on. Google has been dining out on search for too long. Enjoy! :)
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LikeConversation from Facebook
HACKS
hi's cheating!!
I suppose it took this long for all the Google employees to jump on the google + bandwagon.
Not